"The days of decline are over"- Jersey gets £166,000 re-brand

Thursday 09 June 2016

Tourism Minister Lyndon Farnham has vowed that Jersey’s days of decline as a holiday resort are over.

He told over 100 guests at the launch of Jersey’s new brand campaign that tourism chiefs will no longer tolerate declining holidaymaker numbers. Since the 1990s, visitor numbers have been in freefall – only two other destinations have suffered a bigger decline that Jersey in the last ten years: Ukraine and Tunisia.

Senator Farnham said the new promotional campaign will reverse those figures.

“Tourism is vital to the economic and social well-being of this island,” said Senator Farnham. “Without doubt the years of continuous decline in this industry are over. We are now only looking one way and that is forward.

“Tourism affects everything that we do on Jersey and it defines what we are as an island. This new campaign will rejuvenate an industry which has been in decline for many years, but those days over.”

Tourism chiefs unveiled a new brand, which uses the strapline, "The Island Break", and is designed to home in on how the Island makes a visitor feel, without focussing on any particular age group:

"Jersey is not for the old. Or for the young. Or any particular age range. You can’t condense it down to a single iconic image or experience. It’s not a city break. Or a country break. Or even a beach break. It’s The island break.

"The new brand will challenge the current perceptions of Jersey as a visitor destination. At its core, this was a project to identify and amplify how Jersey makes a visitor feel.  Visit Jersey worked in conjunction with FutureBrand and Jersey agency The Observatory, to create this new proposition, they listened hard to the people who know the island best, and rediscovered what Jersey is all about."

Visit Jersey published a video to demonstrate how they plan to promote the Island.

Visit Jersey 01_30s - Summer 2016-SD from Bailiwick Express on Vimeo.

Chief Executive of Visit Jersey, Keith Beecham, told guests the plan was for Jersey to attract one million tourists a year by 2030, up from its current level of just over 700,000:

“If we do this well, not only will we markedly increase the number of visitors coming to Jersey every year, but we will also see a rise in how much money they spend and that will means Jersey becomes a better place to attract inward investment. If we get this right and I am convinced we have, we will ensure that more than just tourism will benefit.

“Change is not easy. We have done a massive amount of research into what people want and expect from Jersey and we have looked painstakingly into the reasons why they are not coming to the island in the numbers that they used to.

“Without doubt, things are about to change. We are no longer in the business of being spectators in the global tourism world, but a competitor.”